Evaluating the tourism activity in a destination: the case of Samos Island

The current consensus on Sustainable Tourism Development emphasizes the necessity for all tourist planning and policy making decisions to consider the impacts of tourism activity on all three dimensions of sustainability: economic efficiency referring to the capacity of an economy to be competitive, social justice aiming at the better distribution of produced welfare in the society and environmental preservation as the conservation of ecosystem’s capacity to provide humans with goods and services essential for their survival.A successful evaluation of the tourism activity presupposes the extensive examination of certain elements of the tourism product itself (expressed as characteristics of supply, demand and the organization of the tourist market), along a series of parameters related directly to the tourism products (effects), and indirectly to its implications for the destination (impacts). This paper presents a methodological framework for an integrated evaluation and monitoring of the tourism activity, in support of planners and policy makers towards both tourism and regional policy.A case study on the island of Samos in Greece is employed to demonstrate the scope of the methodology based on real data, its potential value but also its limits. The results of the study indicate that tourism remains the main developmental force in the island for over two decades without unfortunately, succeeding to deviate from the rule of decreasing tendencies, of similar mass tourism destination